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Lions Move in And Out of Etosha

New Era (Windhoek)
March 3, 2005
Toivo T Mvula
Oshakati

THE Ministry of Environment and Tourism has urged livestock farmers to report lions and other dangerous animals in human inhabited areas to the Ministry's Wildlife Protection Services.

The Ministry's Director of Parks and Wildlife, Ben Beytel, said the ministry is there to assist farmers remove dangerous animals from human inhabited areas.

The councillor of Uuvudhiya constituency, Amutenya Ndahafa, last week appealed to the ministry to speed up the rehabilitation of one of the fences along the Etosha National Park.

Ndahafa said the fence has deteriorated to the extent that lions and cheetahs move in and out of the park into areas inhabited by people.

Last week, two cattle herdsmen sustained injuries when they were attacked by lions.

Four cattle were also killed after eight lions attacked them.

One of the lions was killed and the other two were shot and wounded by the herdsmen.

The councillor said the attacks by lions on people and livestock is a regular occurrence in his constituency.

Farmers with cattle from Oshiwalunda saltpan cattle post to cattle posts in the Okuma area in the constituency have lost thousands of livestock to lions and cheetahs.

Ndahafa said he personally lost more than 800 livestock since 1992.

Another farmer is said to have lost more than 1000 cattle.

In the last two weeks, Ndahafa said, he lost 24 goats to cheetahs.

The councillor said there would be no solution to their problem until a new fence was erected along the Etosha park border.

He also called on the ministry to reinstate the patrol team that was deployed in the area to monitor the movement of wildlife.

The ministry apparently can no longer afford to keep the patrol team there.

But Beytel said the teams were still there, adding that at least one of the two teams in the area was there, because they just recently (end of last month) gave feedback to his office about the situation on the ground.

Beytel said the ministry has already started upgrading and erecting a high game-proof fence at the northern boundary of Etosha.

He said the upgrading of the fence was one of the ministry's capital projects.

Even though they have completed a big portion, Beytel noted, the project may still take a while to complete because the northern boundary running from Omutambomawe to the Oshivelo gate stretches for several hundreds of kilometres.

The rain, he added, was also delaying the completion.

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John aka NitroX

...
Govt get out of our lives NOW!
"I love the smell of cordite in the morning."
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